More Americans leaving Christianity

December 27, 2009

The Gallup Poll has released the results of its
annual Religious Identity poll
. The most interesting fact: "This year's average of 13% of Americans who claim no religious identity is the highest in Gallup records."

Also of interest is the number of Americans who do say they have a religon, but that religion is not Christian: that percentage has hit 9% of Americans.

This means that only 78% of Americans still identify with Christianity, a new low. The Gallup Poll press release says:

"In 1948, 91% of Americans identified with a Christian faith. Twenty
years ago, in 1989, 82% of Americans identified as Christian. Ten years
ago, it was 84%. This year, as noted, 78% of all American adults
identify with a Christian faith."

Gallup's announcement also describes how the number of Americans who say that religion is not very important to them keeps growing, and how church membership keep declining.

Comments:

#1 Brian (Guest) on Sunday December 27, 2009 at 8:28am

Gallup doesn’t list the margin of error in the link, but my guess is that it’s at least +/- 2%. If we look at the data a little more skeptically before we get all excited, it seems likely that there has been no significant change in the number of Americans who identify as a Christian between 1989 and now.

#2 Ragu (Guest) on Tuesday December 29, 2009 at 11:50pm

Unfortunately, 78% is too high, considering the human intelligence and the developed-nation (economically) status of USA!

Ultimately science and reason triumphs over blind faith. A belief system is just a belief, just a perception of the reality out there. Not the absolute truth.

Perceptions of realities are NOT the realities, whatever the realities are out there. Realities are not altered by signifying and glorifying perceptions!

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John Shook is Director of Education and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry–Transnational in
Amherst, N.Y., and Research Associate in Philosophy at the
University at Buffalo, since 2006. He has
authored and edited more than a dozen books, is a co-editor of three
philosophy journals, and travels for lectures and debates across the United
States and around the world.